Toy Story 3, The King's Speech & More Ineligible for WGA Awards

The 2010 nominees for the WGA Awards, or the annual Writers Guild Awards, haven't been announced yet - not until January 4th. When they do arrive, there will be some key films of 2010 missing, because they were disqualified. The WGA likes to cut out scripts that don't follow "the guild's Minimum Basic Agreement, or the agreements of several affiliated international guilds," whatever that means. As reported by Steve Pond of The Wrap (via Awards Daily), the scripts disqualified this year include: The King's Speech, Winter's Bone, Toy Story 3, Blue Valentine and Another Year. Quite a batch of films with damn good writing!

To be honest, I don't think this is as shocking as it all sounds, as this happens pretty much every year with the WGA. Last year they disqualified Inglourious Basterds, An Education and District 9, which opened up space for 500 Days of Summer to get a nomination. Maybe excluding those 5 strong scripts will allow other worthy scripts a chance, like Monsters or The American. It's not good to hear that some of the best writing won't be recognized by its own guild, but there's always the Oscars, where I'm also expecting/hoping to see The King's Speech, Toy Story 3 and Blue Valentine to get featured anyway. Stay tuned for the nominations!

For a full list of all of the screenplays that are eligible for the Writers Guild Awards, head over to The Wrap and scroll to the bottom. Sadly, Gareth Edwards' Monsters didn't make the cut, but The Social Network did.

Really Toy Story 3? Ugh I am 33 and I cry every time I see the end of that movie. How could you not include it? ...

A5J4DX

toy story 3 4 life!

jebstuart

i know! lets disqualify all the best movies. thats a great idea!

Robbie

The Social Network anyone?

beavis

#1 - really.......aren't ALL awards shows messed up/worthless? i don't care how many awards a movie wins if i enjoy watching that film.

underscore

But the thing is, Toy Story 3 should NOT be eligible for any screenplay nominations and I was shocked and appalled last year when UP's "screenplay" got nominated for an Oscar. These films have no scripts! And regardless, I will love Pixar to the end of time, but I still consider that 'playing dirty'.
Transcripts should not be considered eligible for award nominations. Those films are storyboarded and constantly revised based on feedback from brainstorm sessions in house. The so called "scripts" are the transcripts that are made for the voice actors but written out in proper screenplay format so they can be submitted for award eligibility.
As far as the others are concerned, perhaps there's too much ad-libbing when compared to the dialogue in the screenplay?

phillip

#7 - I could be wrong.... but I'm pretty sure all films have rewrites, script revisions, and scenes cut. I believe the technical term is called "editing." A transcript would imply all aspects of an animated film were off the cuff and improvised, whereas it's the exact opposite. Takes a lot of forward planning to create even a few minutes of animated content let alone an entire movie. Also, live action films get story boarded too...

http://www.modernamericanman.net ModernAmericanMan

All films have scripts, even animated. At some point during the revision process a script is only used as a point of reference and story board and transcripts can become the main source during these revision sessions. This can also happen with a live action film, especially an action film during the filming of an action sequence.

anonymous

8 and 9, That's not true. Sorry but you're wrong and I know for a FACT that the majority of Disney and Pixar's animated films do not have screenplays made at the start of preproduction. Most of those films start off as a basic premise that is pitched in competition with other pitches and the best ones get green lit and scheduled. After that, the story is fleshed out and revised through storyboards. In animation, storyboarding is the 'screenwriting process' when there is no script to work off of--which is almost always. Storyboarding for live action films is a different process entirely and is often done while working off a screenplay and is not treated with the same amount of detail, revision, and craftsmanship, because it serves a much more direct purpose--visualising a sequence that has already been written in a script.
As an example and FACT, Reboot Ralph is the first Disney animated feature in a long time to have an actual screenplay, which I've read because my job required doing so. I have never read any screenplays for Monsters Inc 2, Toy Story 3, Up, Tangled/Rapunzel, Princess and the Frog, Bolt, or Cars 2. Because there weren't any. The story for each of those films was developed through constant storyboarding.

Gerry Conway

Just to be clear, the WGA awards are not, and have never been, awards for "best writing," whatever that may be; they're awards for the "best writing" that's been created by writers working under the terms of the Guild's Minimum Basic Agreement contract with signatory production companies. These are awards presented by the Guild to members of the Guild (or affiliated international guilds) who've worked on projects covered by contractual terms negotiated by the Guild. As such, they're not intended to recognize absolute excellence, only relative excellence. It isn't the Guild's fault that various writers and/or production companies choose to create films with scripts that aren't covered by the Guild's contract. This award is purely a membership-based award, and really only has relevance within the Guild itself, and to Guild members, but over the years, studios have used the Guild's award as a way to promote a screenplay as a candidate for the more commercially-relevant Academy Award.
None of these things mean anything except access to money.

Moon

Well The Social Network is the best script of the year so I don't care if those didn't get nominated.

Beetle

lol Toy Story, good its a kids film.
Japanese animation is a lot better than american, they do not make simple, popcorn, nothing beneath the surface films like toy story and shrek.
Kind Regards

Akirakorn

@13 You're pigeonholing an entire medium by one genre (e.g. Japanese sports are better than American's because they don't play Football). Japanese animation is much larger, broader, and socially accepted industry (in it's own country) than American's so yes, it is better; because it is allowed to be. The only accepted, and profitable animated films in America are simple popcorn movies so that's all we pretty much get.
If that was too complicated let my simplify:
Toy Story, and to it's credit all of Pixar's films are good family films, meaning everyone can and will enjoy them. Not just kids
Japanese animation (studios) do make simple, popcorn, nothing beneath the surface films like Toy Story and Shrek.
All award shows are biased and political. Even if it wasn't "mainstream" films will still win the majority of awards, as that is what the majority of people will see or be exposed to.
So if 100,000,000 people see Twilight and only 1% of them say its good and vote, and 100,000 people see Buried and 90% of those say it's good and vote... Twlight wins by a landslide 1,000,000 to 90,000.